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A Multidisciplinary workshop organized by Academia Europaea Barcelona Knowledge Hub and Ciência Viva, the Portuguese Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture, to commemorate the United Nations’ International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL 2015). The event is also supported by the Academia Europaea 2015 Hubert Curien Fund.#

The programme includes several topics, from the structure of matter to the early development of life on Earth, and the connections between light and art. Radiation and the electromagnetic spectrum, the arrival of light to the Earth, the relationship between light and symbiosis, and optoelectronics will be some of the topics addressed by a multidisciplinary group of speakers. The meeting will be divided into five sections: Cosmic Light, Light and Technology, Light and Life, the Light of History, and Light and Art.

The Workshop will also include a homage to Prof. José Mariano Gago (1948-2015), a reception at the City Council on July 2, and a piano concert with a light show at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento on July 3.

Unique to Europe was the very ﬁrst space mission for measuring the positions, distances, motions, brightness and colours of stars. ESA's Hipparcos satellite pinpointed more than 100 000 stars, 200 times more accurately than ever before. The primary product from this pioneering and successful mission was a set of stellar catalogues, The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues, published by ESA in 1997. Pedro Russo, coordinator of the IYA2009, University of Leiden | The Next Light Wave: why too much light is an issue for astronomyAndré Moitinho, University of Lisbon | 3D visualization of stars and galaxies from Hipparcos to Gaia

10:00 Key- Note Lecture: THE FAINT SUN AND THE BRIGHT MOON: EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE ON EARTHRicardo Guerrero (BKH-AE)

11:00 Break

11:30 Panel: LIGHT AND SYMBIOSIS: LIFE AFTER THE PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Cyanobacteria evolved into harnessing light to generate their own energy and later, by several endosymbiotic processes, the cloroplast emerged. Life on Earth would never be the same again: a “toxic” gas emerged and invaded the atmosphere, and almost annihilated the whole incipient biosphere. This gas was oxygen, without which we all would not be here.José Feijó, University of Maryland, USA José Matos, Portuguese Committee for IYL 2015, Portuguese Association of Biologists and INIAV | Feeding the BiosphereRicardo Guerrero, Barcelona Knowledge Hub-Academia Europaea

15:15 Panel: LIFE FROM LIGHT, LIGHT FOR LIFE. IN REMEMBRANCE OF LYNN MARGULIS (1938-2011)Exhibition of the documentary film specially made for this occasion on behalf of the Academia Europaea.
Director: Rubén Duro